by Karen Bell
‘Air support is on it. The car’s heading south on Euston, no wait, they’ve just made a left onto Huntley towards Bourke. They’re running the lights.’
‘Call for backup,’ he screamed.
‘We’ve called for all units but it’s chaos here and we’ve lost track of who’s available. Everyone’s caught up in the shit fight out the front. It’s a fucking warzone.’
Resources were clearly stretched. It was not one of the usual calm, collected operators that Ryan was used to. The street was empty as he gained speed and careened around another corner turning south. He nearly high sided over the bike as he saw the gravel too late and then braked too hard to avoid spinning off. He opened up the throttle and clung on while the bike steadied, wracking his brain to visualise the fastest way to catch up and cut them off. In a split second decision he took O’Riordan, hoping to hell that they were headed to the airport and not elsewhere.
The getaway car was a tank on steroids, top of the line, supercharged 5.0 litre V8 and even if Ryan was confident to catch it, stopping it would be another matter. Ryan too was running every red light as he received information regarding the other vehicle. ‘Am I gaining on it? Tell me when I can cut across and who else is chasing?’
‘You’re it for now. Units are heading from Rockdale but they’re still a distance away.’
‘Fuck. What about Maroubra and Mascot?’ he screamed over the engine noise of the bike.
‘They’re all caught up at the warehouse. Half of them are hemmed in and the other half are trying to get to them.’
Ryan was riding on instinct, distracted by the need to work out how he was going to shoot the wheels out from under a two and a half tonne missile while riding at speed. If he aimed for the driver, he also risked Mila’s safety. She was unlikely to be strapped in and regardless of multiple airbags, a high speed crash had deadly potential. He thought momentarily of Princess Diana in the tunnel in Paris.
If he’d been right handed, it would have been all but impossible, the throttle of the bike being on the right too but he was left handed and felt he had a reasonable chance at a shot. The operator’s voice crackled in. ‘Chopper pilot thinks they’re headed for the Corporate Airfield. Do you know the layout?’
‘Sort of,’ he screamed back. ‘but I’m gonna try to cut them off before they get there.’ Who knew what would be waiting for him to deal with if he let the car get that far? He knew that in one spot, there was nothing but a single set of chain-link gates leading from the street onto the airfield. No security or immigration to pass through if one wanted to avoid it. He shouldn’t have to be making these choices, decisions that could seal Mila’s fate in one way or another. What if he got it wrong?
Normally there’d be someone overseeing the chase, pre-empting the vehicle’s next move and relaying instructions to the relevant unit. Normally there’d be backup coming from all directions. Ryan wasn’t convinced that the operator had any of it under control and at this stage and the chopper could be of little help other than to track the car.
‘The two roads merge beyond Gardeners’, so you’ll be coming up on their left.’
‘How many are in the car?’ Ryan yelled.
‘The pilot can’t get a visual and we don’t have the manpower to check the traffic cameras.’
Ryan had recognised the one who’d fired on him as one of the two who’d featured in that photo taken at the Casino, the photo with Mike’s killer, and Robert Taylor as well. He was the puppeteer, the mastermind, and the one who called the shots.
It was imperative to get a sighting of the occupants in that car, to know how many he was dealing with. Educated guess told him that the big boss wouldn’t have gotten his hands dirty, pulling a gun on him if one of his men had been available. He hoped to hell that they’d all been caught up in the assault in the warehouse and prayed to God that he was the only other person with Mila in that car.
The bike screamed towards the airport, Friday night traffic doing little to delay Ryan’s passage as he veered around stationery vehicles, tore through red lights and mounted footpaths where necessary.
‘What’s my position in relation to them now?’ He had just ducked and woven across a major six-lane intersection, no doubt the other car was doing the same thing one hundred metres up the road.
‘Neck and neck, you should get a sighting to your right any second.’
He’d come to the conclusion that his best chance would be to come up from behind and try to take out one or both rear tyres. If he could slow them down, he’d have a better shot at the driver and minimise the impact of any crash. He was hoping to see the SUV just ahead but he reached the intersection too soon and found himself screeching to a standstill. Lifting his visor to get a better view there was no sign of the vehicle but he could hear the squeal of tyres and the honking of horns in the distance.
‘Where are they,’ he yelled. ‘Have I missed them?’
‘No, they’re coming through now.’
The Range Rover was in the right lane when it shot through and Ryan threw the Duke back into gear, cutting in front of the line of stunned drivers in order to catch it. He had lined up the shot and was about to take it when the driver must have seen or heard him because without warning, the car veered violently, slamming into the side of a small hatchback which spun off and mounted the median strip before rolling onto its roof. Ryan winced at the unfolding disaster as a car coming from the other direction slammed into the overturned hatch.
He caught the start of it in his peripheral vision and heard the sickening crash but didn’t take his focus off the black SUV, even for a split second, as he again lined it up in his sights. The bike ate up the metres dividing them in seconds and he took his shot from close range. Immediately, the tire exploded and the car careened to one side, Ryan barely swerving in time to avoid the driver’s side door as it came around to meet the bike. Suddenly he was in front of the car and he heard it accelerate behind him, trying to run him down. He didn’t have time to think, his only concern to stay on the bike and put himself in position to take a shot at the driver. He pitched off to one side, braking hard and spinning the bike around his heel into a three sixty turn, in time for the less manoeuvrable car to overtake him. As he came around, Ryan saw the driver’s side window roll open and caught sight of the face in the car’s side mirror. For the briefest moment they locked eyes, and he saw the hand on the steering wheel, small uzi at the ready, as the car again tried to cut him off. This time Ryan was ready and he braked hard, ducking around the back of it, to the passenger side before shooting out the left back tire. When the car swerved again, he thought he could make out Mila’s slight form through the darkly tinted window being tossed around in the passenger seat.
Still the 4WD powered through, marginally slowed but not crippled. He’d been close enough to touch her. If only he could somehow climb from the bike to the car, he could get a shot from the roof, but there was no running board, no roof racks to grab a hold of, nothing but a side mirror. Ryan realised he wasn’t going to be able to stop it before it reached the airfield. Where the hell were those other units? Car and bike barrelled into the last big intersection against the lights, dodging and weaving between cars and trucks, their astonished drivers slamming on the brakes before settling on their horns in a cacophony of outrage and shock. Ryan was concerned only with the signs for the executive airfield that came into view and flashed by. Time was running out.
The police helicopter had been overhead since Ryan had caught up with the car but it could do little to help from above. Finally he heard the distant wail of sirens heading down Joyce Drive towards them. Back-up at last. Come on, COME ON, he willed them.
The Range Rover had almost over-shot the Execujet entrance when it screeched suddenly right, fishtailing, before picking up speed and crashing through the gates. Ryan, so focussed on the car, realised what was happening a second too late, and slid out, losing the bike as he tried to make the turn. He wasted precious seconds, running to g
et it, then straining to pick up the half tonne machine. By the time he made it onto the tarmac, the car was several hundred metres away, screeching to a halt alongside a G650, staircase down, turbines already warming up.
He put his head down and opened the throttle, the airplane locked in his sights. At the entrance to the jet, someone appeared with machine gun in hand waving maniacally towards the car. Then Ryan saw her, Mila, being dragged, struggling and kicking wildly from the driver’s side, towards the plane.
He heard sirens screaming into the airfield somewhere behind him. At the sound of them, a new rush of adrenalin spiked through every taut fibre of his being. He intentionally dropped the bike ten metres short of the stationery car, sliding on his back towards it, pistol still in hand. Using the car for cover, he sprang to his feet and stole a look from around the back corner, in time to see Mila being half carried and half dragged up the stairs behind her captor. She had a gun to her head and Ryan wavered, unable to get a clear shot. Fuck, he swore aloud, scanning the scene to find a better angle.
At that moment, the gunman at the top of the stairs began spraying a round of bullets from a Kalashnikov towards the police chopper hovering above. The chopper, peppered with bullet holes, dipped and lurched, the pilot struggling to pull away.
While the shooter was momentarily distracted Ryan took aim, choosing the largest target he could find. He fired once, and then again for good measure, both bullets finding contact as the assailant dropped his weapon and grabbed his stomach before falling forwards. He began rolling down the stairs, knocking the legs out from under Mila’s captor who momentarily loosened his grip on her as he lunged for the handrail. Ryan practically cheered when he saw her wriggle out of his grasp and somehow right herself on the steep stairs.
‘RUN!’ he screamed, but his voice was drowned by the noise. ‘RUN!’ he screamed again, only as he yelled it for the second time he remembered that her ankles were still bound with plastic ties and his heart seized. He watched in slow motion as her assailant lunged to grab her again, and felt his adrenalin soar as she launched herself over the railing and beyond his reach before disappearing from view on the other side. Ryan leapt from behind his cover and broke into a sprint towards the plane.
The noise around him was deafening, chopper blades, sirens, and screeching tyres as police cars finally surrounded the plane.
‘Drop your weapon!’ he bellowed as Mila’s abductor regained his balance and began scrambling up the stairs. ‘Drop it or I’ll shoot!’ he yelled again over the chaos, lining him up in his sights.
He already had plenty of reason to put a bullet through his head, just no court-worthy excuse. In slow motion, Ryan saw the uzi coming into view as the gunman turned towards him, finger on the trigger.
Thank you, asshole, he said to himself as he took the shot.
CHAPTER FORTY
Jack had been found hiding behind the wall beside the warehouse where Ryan had first parked the bike, waiting for his master to return. One of the other officers had found him and Tony had pulled rank to get him into the hospital where Mila had been taken. He was now lying contentedly on the narrow bed with his head resting on Mila’s feet.
Ironically, after keeping her tears at bay throughout the rescue and the subsequent ambulance ride with Ryan, Mila had finally broken down on hearing the news that Jack was safe. She had last seen him felled by a vicious kick to the head in the office of the warehouse and she couldn’t bear to imagine Ryan losing another best friend, let alone in an attempt to save her.
She sat up, arm in a sling listening to the conspiratorial chatter passing between Adie, Holly, Ryan and Carlos.
‘I am in the room you know, I can hear you all and if you insist on mollycoddling me, by keeping me here, the least you can do is to include me, or else get me a pen and paper so I can write down all the names and information that I’ve been storing in my head.’
‘That can wait until after surgery tomorrow,’ Ryan looked over to her, and Mila caught the relief and tenderness sharing his expression.
‘I also need to tell you now, in case I forget everything after a general anaesthetic tomorrow, that I overheard a conversation in Russian between the two bosses and I’m pretty sure there must be a safe concealed somewhere in the warehouse. Who knows what you might find in there, cash, names, account numbers.’
‘Okay smarty pants, can you leave some of this crime-solving for the rest of us mere mortals?’
He turned to the others in the room. ‘Thanks to Mila’s early tip off, we were better prepared and the casualty count on our side was far lower than it might have been. Still, two men is too many, and another three are in surgery with gun-shot injuries.’
‘What about the bad guys?’ asked Holly.
‘From what I’ve heard, all the main players are either dead, under hospital guard, or in custody. A few of the bikers got away but they weren’t key suspects.’
‘And thanks to our patron saints, all Mila’s got to show for it is a broken collar bone,’ Carlos remarked happily.
‘My husband, the definition of tact,’ Adie added dryly as they all cracked up.
Mila winced with the sudden movement. ‘Ouch, don’t make me laugh,’ she pleaded, then added more seriously, ‘from where I was cowering under that desk, it sounded like hell in there. All I could think about was you in the thick of it until you burst into that room. And then when I saw you go down...I didn’t know what had happened…’ she swallowed hard as the sentence trailed off.
‘Sorry you had to go through that. We all had body armour and the tactical response guys were even better protected. That’s one of the reasons we lost so few.’
The television was switched on with the sound turned down on the wall above them and news of the drug bust was scrolling in a line across the bottom of the screen. Mila reached for the remote to turn up the volume. ‘Look, there’s a press conference happening now. They might know more than we do.’
There was Ryan’s boss Tony, standing before a packed room of journalists confirming that over 1800 kilos of crystalline ephedrine had been seized, enough to produce up to 2000 kilos of Methamphetamines with a potential street value of two billion dollars.
A major Russian and Ukrainian drug syndicate, also responsible for the production and distribution of pornography and suspected people smuggling had been brought down, with eight casualties including its king pin, and second in charge; two other members and members of the well known Comanchero bike gang. More than two dozen arrests had been made with more expected to follow. A civilian who had been taken hostage remained un-named but had been rescued safely.
‘While you were with them, did anyone catch on that you understood Russian?’ Ryan asked with a look of concern clouding his face.
‘No. They were speaking like I wasn’t even in the room.’ Mila sensed that the worst might not yet be over. ‘I’m going to have to testify, aren’t I?’
‘It is possible, but if I have any say in it you’ll be kept out of the witness box. Honestly, I think the syndicate has been so decimated, they’ll never regroup, and with the right questioning we can pit one against the other to make it seem like one of their own is already spilling the beans. At times like this, all codes and loyalties go out the window and once we set the ball rolling it’ll become every man for himself.
The press conference went on, but they had heard enough.
Ever tactful Carlos looked to Ryan. ‘Now would be a good time to ask for a pay rise I think and Mila should be looking for a reward for her part.’
‘The pay rise for any of us doing our jobs is unlikely, but victim compensation for Mila is on the cards.’
‘I would have preferred a quiet night in,’ Mila commented with barely a hint of a smile.
With no discussion necessary, Ryan had instinctively known what to share and what to withhold from the others regarding the past two weeks and Robert’s criminal involvement. Still, Mila was relieved when the Holly, Adie and Carlos left before midnight,
promising to come back first thing in the morning.
Despite the outcome, the demon of things unsaid had been gnawing away at Mila, since her rescue and she knew it would continue until she had the much-needed answers. She’d only been half present in their conversations, knowing that she’d have to deal with the cause of her anxiety once they were alone.
‘What about the one who killed your partner?’ Mila asked.
‘Tony says he was killed at the warehouse but I’m going to go and see at the morgue for myself. We still don’t know his real name.’
‘What did he look like?’
Ryan took out the photo from the casino that they’d all carried with them to identify the prime suspects, and put it into her hand.
Mila’s face said more than a thousand words as she saw Robert standing behind them. ‘I have Robert’s keys hidden at home. I think one key might just belong to that safe I mentioned but I couldn’t tell you in front of Holly. I didn’t want her knowing that her father was in any way involved.’
‘Of course. That went without saying.’
‘I’m sorry if that means they’ll think that this was all because of my connection to you.’
‘I’m prepared to take the wrap. It’s not entirely untrue.’
Mila pointed one at a time to the men in the foreground of the photo.
‘The one that took me tonight, they called him Maslak. He was the boss, and the other one,’ she said, shifting her finger, ‘his name was Sergei Usenko. I only heard his surname because that’s what Maslak called him when he came into the office where you found me. He was the one who organised the break in, and paid me a ‘visit’ that day and he was the one waiting for me in the hotel room. Was he the one who shot Mike?’
Ryan nodded but his thoughts were elsewhere. ‘Sergei Usenko,’ he repeated trying to get his tongue around the pronunciation. I’ve waited ten years to put a name to that face. It’s almost an anticlimax now.’